Chapter Text
PARIS, FRANCE
My name is Catherine Delatour. I’m an educated twenty-five-year-old young woman, the only daughter of a rich and noble Parisian family. My life was that of the typical lady of my rank: it was punctuated with tea breaks, strolls in the garden, conversations with my friends of the high society and sophisticated dinners in fancy dining rooms.
Everything had been alright, normal, until my life forever changed when I learned a secret that made me realize I had been lied to since the day I was born.
***
“Mademoiselle Catherine, your mother is asking you to join her in the parlour,” Angèle, my maid, informed me from the door of my large bedroom. I stopped combing my ginger hair to go downstairs in the parlour, where my father would probably be sitting in his armchair, reading his newspaper. To get there I had to walk across the long corridor that led to the stairs. Every time I walked in my house and took a second to admire the many works of art that decorated its walls, I would realize how lucky I was to have been so well-born. My mother, Marie-Jeanne, was a cousin of the King and my father, Jean-Philippe, was the only son of one of the richest Lords in Paris. My very high-ranked parentage had allowed me to get a very thorough education. I spoke English fluently, which was only common among the French nobility and aristocracy. I also mastered the arts of literature and mathematics. I had wealth, knowledge, good health… everything a girl of my age could ask for. But somehow, something was missing, to make me completely happy. I had never been able to know what it was.
“Did you want to see me?” I asked my mother, who was sitting at a table with my father and a man I had never seen, who looked about fifty, roughly my father’s age.
“Yes, Catherine, please have a seat,” my father said, showing me an empty chair facing the guest.
“You were right, Jean-Philippe. Your daughter is astonishingly beautiful. Despite her ginger hair, I hope our children won’t inherit that gene.”
“I beg your pardon?” I asked, looking at the man with surprise mixed with incomprehension. ‘Our children?’ What was that all about?
“You see, darling, our friend Charles Dupont here is a very ambitious man. He is seeking the position of head of the royal militia, and his chances of getting there would be increased greatly if he were to be married to a beautiful and well-born young lady. In exchange, he would cover the rather illegal business I set up to avoid paying my taxes. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.”
“But I don’t want to get married.” I answered. I truly did not want to. I had never felt happier than on the day my former future husband died, killed by his horse.
“But you have to, Catherine. You are a woman, you are supposed to get married and have children anyway,” he answered and my mother nodded.
“So, you think getting married and having children are the only things a woman can do, don’t you?”
“Oh, she’s a fierce one! What a challenge!” said my ‘fiancé’ with too much enthusiasm.
“I need some air,” I said while getting up from my chair before opening the French windows that led into our thousand square-mile garden. Feeling angry, I walked to the nearest bench and sat down, pausing to watch the servants who were on a break playing with their children. Was it how my life was going to be? Being a servant to a man, staying at home and taking care of our children all day? I felt like I had been born for something greater than this. For adventure.
“Are you alright, Milady?” my maid Angèle asked. Angèle was my only friend here at the mansion. She had always been nice to me, and did not regard me as if I were a doll only meant to find a husband.
“My parents found a husband for me. He’s much older than me, and I don’t even know him. I don’t want to marry him,” I said, a tear rolling down my cheek.
“You don’t have to, if you don’t want to…”
“But I have to. I’m a Delatour. And I’m a woman. I have to do as I’m told…” I noticed a sad look on my maid’s face, but I had the feeling she was not sad because of my situation, as saddening as it was.
“Angèle, are you alright?” I asked, putting a gentle hand on her shoulder.
“I came to give you bad news. Our friend, Mère Hildegarde, is now lying on her death bed. I’m afraid her sickness is taking her to Heaven.”
“Oh, no…” I felt a sadness I had rarely felt before. Mère Hildegarde, from L’Hôpital des Anges, had been a close friend of mine. I used to love playing at the hospital with her dog Bouton when I was a child. All these years, I had considered Mère Hildegarde as a grandmother.
“Her condition is getting worse by the minute. She might be joining Him very soon, even before tonight. She asked to see you before she… goes.”
“Thank you very much, Angèle. Tell my parents I’m at the hospital. I have to say goodbye to a friend.”
***
Climbing the few stairs that led to the Hôpital des Anges, I thought about my childhood and how close I had been to Mère Hildegarde since my younger age. I fought back the tears when thinking that today was the last time I was going to see her.
“Hello, how can I help you, young lady?” a nun gently asked as I entered the building.
“I’m here to see my friend, Mère Hildegarde.”
“Yes, God bless her. She’s about to go to Heaven, if you need to talk to her, do it now.”
“I will, thank you.”
“Come with me.”
The nun took me to a small private room. The first thing I saw when coming in was poor Mère Hildegarde lying on a bed, her eyes half closed, her face forever altered by sickness. Another nun was lighting up a candle next to the dying woman, before leaving the room after being asked to. Seeing my friend in this condition, I did not dare to speak. I was not sure I knew how to react. Fortunately, the awkward silence was broken by Mother Hildegarde’s weak voice.
“Catherine, I’m so glad you came…” she whispered, her eyes this time fully open.
“Mother Hildegarde, I’m happy to see you too. Why did you want to see me?” I asked.
“Because I have a secret to tell you. As you can see, it cannot wait. I have to tell you my secret, or else I won’t be going to Heaven.”
“Don’t worry, if anyone can go to Heaven, it’s you. You’re the most loyal person I know,” I said, fighting against the tears again.
“No, I have lied to everyone for years. I have to confess to you.”
“Alright. What is it?”
“Twenty-five years ago, an English woman came to work here. She wanted to help people,” she started, between coughs. “Her name was Claire Fraser. She was young, beautiful, and expecting a child with her Scottish husband. A few weeks before the end of her pregnancy, she started to loose blood, and one day, she fainted. We had to deliver the baby immediately. The little girl was breathing, and one of my nurses took her to another room to clean her. *cough* When she came back, the baby was dead. We all thought she had been born too early and that she had not survived outside her mother’s belly. I had her baptized and buried in the cemetery just outside l’Hôpital. Her name was Faith.”
“It’s horrible,” I said. I could not imagine the pain this woman, Claire, must have felt when she lost her child.
“Yes, it is. When she woke up, we had to tell her her baby was dead. She was devastated. I brought her the baby before burial, so that she could hold her. She held her daughter in her arms for hours, until we had to bury her. Claire spent several days in bed, crying all tears she could cry. *cough* But a few days later, I saw the nurse who had washed the baby and brought her dead being given money from a man. I asked her what it was all about and she told me everything. His wife had just lost her child and the nurse exchanged Claire’s baby with hers in exchange of money. She said the man had threatened her and her family if she spoke to the militias or to the real mother of the baby, and would not hesitate to have me killed if I did the same. This is why I remained silent all these years. *Cough, cough*
“So you mean… the English lady’s baby was alive and the nurse made her think it was dead? She brought the wrong child?”
“Yes, this is what happened,” she answered in a very weak voice.
“I’m sorry, but… how is this related to me? Why did you want to tell me about it?”
“Because the man who gave money to the nurse was… your father.”
“My father??? Why would he steal a baby?”
“Because his wife had just lost her baby, and they wanted a child, so they took Claire’s baby to raise her. You. You are the real Faith Fraser.”